The Conservatives announced a new plan for monitoring the oilsands Thursday, expanding on earlier calls for a reassessed approach to keeping tabs on environmental changes in the area.

[start_gallery][end_gallery]Minister of the Environment Peter Kent announces plans for integrated oilsands monitoring during a news conference in Ottawa, Thur. July 21, 2011. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Environment minister Peter Kent said that given the importance of the oilsands to Canada’s long-term economic growth, “we must ensure that this resource is developed in a way that protects our air, our water, and biodiversity for generations to come.”

“We need evidence that the growing production is environmentally responsible,” Kent told reporters, adding that the information gathered from oilsands monitoring under the new plan will “provide facts and the science to defend the product.”

In collaboration with the Alberta government, phase one of the integrated plan includes components for monitoring air quality, biodiversity, and the next phase of water quality monitoring in the oilsands region. The monitoring plan will increase scrutiny on the environmental impact of the oilsands.

The government aims to introduce 18 new water monitoring stations and 14 posts to monitor air quality, covering a greater geographical region than those that are already in place.

The plan also recognizes that “it is not necessary to monitor everything, everywhere, all the time.” That means that monitoring will be on a “trigger” basis, in order to adapt to any changes that occur in specific areas.

Data collected under the new plan will be made freely available online, as per suggestions laid out in the Federal Oil Sands Advisory Panel report issued in December of last year.

The plan is predicated on a report issued in March, which reviewed surface water quality monitoring in the Athabasca River and its main tributaries in northeastern Alberta.

Phase two of the plan will expand the geographic scope of water monitoring to include smaller streams and tributaries in the region, and work towards emissions testing that would be large enough in scale and scope to detect on-site fires, downtime for emissions control equipment and other unusual events.

In March, Kent said that the cost of implementing monitoring under this plan would be approximately $20 million a year. On Thursday, he said the number might be closer to $50 million. Kent was also not specific as to when implementation of the plan would begin, only saying that it would be soon, and that some monitoring teams are already in the region.

When implemented, the government aims for its new expanded monitoring plan to build upon work that has already been done by the Alberta Environment.

Simon Dyer, policy director for the Pembina Institute said that the new plan is positive first step, but that in order to be effective, management of the oilsands must reflect the data collected through the monitoring.

“The idea that monitoring is going to prove that there are no impacts is not reasonable,” he told iPolitics. “We already know that independent monitoring outside of government… has pointed to serious impacts that have not been picked up by the industry monitoring thus far.”

Dyer said the government still has a long way to go when it comes to ensuring that the oilsands are developed responsibly, and rehabilitating its reputation for their management.

“The way that Canada and Alberta could actually demonstrate credibility… is if they were to pause new oilsands approvals until some of this new monitoring data has borne fruit,” he said.

“There are proposals before the regulators right now. If those are approved before these monitoring results are in, it really suggests the monitoring is not going to be used appropriately. And then a cynic could say that part of it is a nod to public relations. Obviously, I hope that’s not the case.”